Declaring and initializing a string array in VB NET

Question

I was trying to return an array of strings from a function and got surprised by an error   I would have expected this to work  but it produces an error   Public Function TestError   As String       Return   foo    bar   End Function   This works   Public Function TestOK   As String       Dim ar As String       foo    bar       Return ar End Function   As does   Public Function TestOK   As String       Return New String     foo    bar   End Function   I guess I m unclear on the meaning of the    s - is there a way to implicitly return a string array without explicitly creating and initializing it

User · Accepted Answer

Array initializer support for type inference were changed in Visual Basic 10 vs Visual Basic 9.

In previous version of VB it was required to put empty parens to signify an array. Also, it would define the array as object array unless otherwise was stated:

' Integer array
Dim i as Integer() = {1, 2, 3, 4} 

' Object array
Dim o() = {1, 2, 3}

Check more info:

Visual Basic 2010 Breaking Changes

Collection and Array Initializers in Visual Basic 2010

User · Answer

I believe you need to specify  Option Infer On  for this to work   Option Infer allows the compiler to make a guess at what is being represented by your code  thus it will guess that   stuff   is an array of strings  With  Option Infer Off     stuff   won t have any type assigned to it  ever  and so it will always fail  without a type specifier   Option Infer is  I think On by default in new projects  but Off by default when you migrate from earlier frameworks up to 3 5   Opinion incoming   Also  you mention that you ve got  Option Explicit Off   Please don t do this   Setting  Option Explicit Off  means that you don t ever have to declare variables  This means that the following code will silently and invisibly create the variable  Y    Dim X as Integer Y   3   This is horrible  mad  and wrong  It creates variables when you make typos  I keep hoping that they ll remove it from the language

User · Answer

Public Function TestError   As String        Return   foo    bar   End Function   Works fine for me and should work for you  but you may need allow using implicit declarations in your project  I believe this is turning off Options strict in the Compile section of the program settings   Since you are using VS 2008  VB NET 9 0  you have to declare create the new instance  New String     foo    Bar

[vb.net] Declaring and initializing a string array in VB.NET

Examples related to vb.net

Examples related to arrays

Examples related to data-structures